


Terminal Ballistics

by TheSpaceCoyote



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Body Horror, Carlos gets possessed by something destructive and Cecil tries to stop him, Inhuman Cecil, M/M, Not A Nice Story, lots of blood and guts and sad things, who goes beserk, with tragic results
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-22
Updated: 2013-08-22
Packaged: 2017-12-24 06:58:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/936790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheSpaceCoyote/pseuds/TheSpaceCoyote
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cecil thought he could protect Carlos from everything, no matter what size or shape or constituency it took on. So when something destructive inhabits Carlos' body, Cecil immediately comes to the scientist's aid. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, Cecil never thought that he would ever need to protect Carlos from himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Terminal Ballistics

**Author's Note:**

> Full disclosure, readers--this was originally a scenario I imagined for a pair of OCs, but it worked tragically well with Night Vale as well.
> 
> I'm not entirely sure about this, it was written when I was pretty tired on my shift last night, but I figured I'd post it anyway, if only for the heartbreak and the ability to contribute to the "character death" tag, which is always my favorite. 
> 
> Cheers.

Something had gotten into Carlos. Something bad.

It was far from Cecil's right to judge the morality of any beings that were, indeed, typically beyond such concepts, and usually such carelessly black and white distinctions were indicative of a blind ignorance and simplistic scope on the nature of the worlds and their multitudes of potential counterparts. But the fact that _anything_ was in Carlos, that anything would _dare_ to take residence within that perfect body and mar that flawless constitution had to make, by Cecil's logic, dredged from the fathomless pocketed pits of Pandaemonium itself. 

Cecil had heard of the hulking, white and pink menace crawling its way through Old Town Night Vale but hadn't thought much of it until it became clear through a series of fuzzy yet picturesque headaches that Carlos was involved--indeed, Carlos was the epicenter of this particular problem. And that had motivated Cecil to take care of this problem himself. 

He'd had a piece of gluten-free toast spread with strawberry bile before leaving the house. He'd been surprised that he maintained a calm demeanor long enough to choke down any food at all, but he knew it was best not to take on creatures of indeterminable horror on an empty stomach. Especially those able to infiltrate and control souls up to Soul Strength Five. It _had_ to be that powerful, at the very least. Among other things, the first course of action Cecil had Carlos do upon becoming more-or-less "official" was take the Certified Soul Strength Examination (or CSSE, as it was known colloquially) which classified him as a solid five, and perhaps a six if he was given the proper amount of blood-priestly aid and perhaps prayed to a different primordial god. Or any primordial god, really. Carlos never seemed all that dedicated to any municipally-approved religions.  

Oh, Carlos, his sweet, eccentric Carlos, who had been so rudely taken advantage of by this _thing_ to fuel its inconceivable rampage through Old Town Night Vale. 

Physically there still remains a shadow of Carlos in the Thing that stands before him now, its limbs bowlegged and its hair falling over its face in thick tendrils of white matter reminiscent of the locks that Cecil had tenderly wound around his fingers and kissed only the night before. The Thing cocks its loathsome head, its mockery of Carlos fair form, and Cecil answers that with a casual, defiant pair hands set on his hips. 

"Get out."

 Before the Thing can open up its mouth and snap up Cecil in one fell gulp, black shapes burst from the space behind his back and shoot out past his body, enveloping the Thing's jaw as its brethren loop around to secure its thighs and arms and many tails. 

"Let him go." Cecil says simply, restraining the beast inhabiting Carlos' body with the minimum amount of strength necessary. He wasn't certain of whether harming this body would harm Carlos once he had purged this thing from his body. He didn't want to take any chances on Carlos suffering permanent or fatal damage. Cecil was confident he could rend the monster out of Carlos body while leaving the scientist intact. It was possible that Carlos would retain some infernal alterations to his soul, but he and Cecil could work around that, just as they could work around any spines or claws or extra eyes  that may result from this scrambling of his physical form. 

Cecil is confident, until the monster yanks one of its limbs back with enough force to pull him off balance, and in that moment of distraction the Thing's claws are upon him. 

The Thing that was Carlos grabs his neck and his leg and before Cecil can wrap any of the tentacles around him and pull _he_ pulls instead. He pulls hard, and Cecil felt cool air on his insides as he's torn asunder right at the hip. His eyes widen only briefly before they freeze, fearful and surprised in sudden death. He falls in two halves on either side of the road with only a constellation of blood tying the parted flesh together. 

The Thing that had been Carlos treats Cecil's body like that of a crushed ant, and made no victory call, no warble of its triumph over the Voice of Night Vale. It turns away from the man and raises its loathsome head to the sky, clumping in its large feet down as it moves away in search of other, inconsequential prey. 

But behind it, the body twitches. Not Cecil himself, no, only his remains. 

Cecil is gone for the time being, and instead something deep and angry and echoing around the whole of Night Vale on a level beyond even the molecular, beyond the spiritual resonates and makes everything vibrate as it speaks.

**ＨＯＷ** **ＵＮＦＯＲＴＵＮＡＴＥ．** ****

The blood from Cecil's two torsos bleeds out black as his skin roils and splits violently as tens of tentacles rent the very air in front of them, cutting swathes into the dimensional constitution of reality, spilling invisible horrors into being before whipping them out of existence with a mighty heave.  

The Thing that was now Carlos is forced to turn as the enraged mass engulfing Cecil raises to its hypothetical feet, its myriad of eyes jostling together, some eating their neighbors and growing massive before exploding into a shower of pupils and sclera. The mass; aroused by the need for self-preservation both for itself and for the town at large, awoken with the soul purpose to eradicate the interloper at all costs. 

The asphalt splits beneath the lashing tentacles, cracks zigzagging around the dotted yellow line of the central divide before splitting off into patterns of swirling paisley. 

The Thing that was Carlos charges, and the Being that was formerly Cecil meets it head on with a wall of black tentacle, which wrapps around the Thing's limbs and tails and fingers and neck, threatening fracture and strangulation with none of the previous mercy. 

 The Being constricts one of its appendages tight around the Thing's arm, and with horrible strength it pulls the limb completely off, loosening its hold and letting it fall to the ground as its owner howls, its remaining hand breaking free of the tendrils and fisting forward into the Being's dark mass. 

 The Being's berserk tentacles tear and pull at the flapping skin of the Thing as its body is squeezed and ripped by the powerful limb and claw, and soon the teeth in that massive jaw come into play and dip into the Being and refuse to let go. Screeching, the Being pulls itself away, leaving the shadowy substance of its body lying ragged in the Thing's mouth as it flops, angry and scared and heavily wounded against the street.

Yet despite this triumph the Thing staggers, bleeding paste the color of peppermint all over itself, from the wounds on its chest and from the stump of its arm. Its muscular form shrieks, every last fiber quaking in a vast death throe before it dissolves and seeps away into the cracks--banished forever, or at least for awhile. 

Leaving Carlos. Carlos, covered in the thick paste that's grown dry and soft like sea foam, that falls away as the man begins to move like he doesn't understand his own limbs. He flexes his hand and shakes, like he's just re-awoken inside his body after a long, long slumber. 

Carlos, whose previous filmy eyes grow sharp again as he looks up and around, slowly piecing the world back together.

Carlos, who wets his lips and tries to remember what he's doing here. How he's gotten into the middle of the street in what he presumes to be Old Town Night Vale when the last thing he remembers is getting out of his morning shower only to find the tiles shaking from the pressure of a Pepto Bismol-colored liquid that had bled up through the cracks and consumed him even as he'd cowered on top of the sink. 

But no, that's not the last thing he remembers, not now as he stands alone, staring at the sky with his eyes not registering anything. Hardly seeing at all, until it all comes back in a clear snap. The thing snaking inside of him, _changing_ him, using his body for its own fiendish needs, hurting and killing and leaping straight through people and buildings alike until someone had stopped him. 

_Cecil_ , he--the Thing had been fighting Cecil. And oh God--he remembers hurting Cecil and ripping him apart and where was he? 

"Cecil?" Carlos whispers, his throat a crust that threatens to crack with each word.

He turns around, and feels his face whiten. 

"Oh God, _Cecil._ "

Carlos almost falls in his sudden hobble towards the crumpled figure that _had_ to be Cecil, Carlos knew those appendages. He had taken many a night examining them close as Cecil dozed, watching how they curled sleepily around his fingers, how they held him and kept him assured and calm.

It _is_ Cecil, that pile of black tendrils that writhe limp against the asphalt, covered in half lidded eyes and making noises like some poor animal being forced through static. He remembers he--the Thing inside him grabbing Cecil, pulling him apart, tearing the tentacles from his body. Hurting him, scaring him 

Carlos almost falls again, but he's closer to Cecil now and he only prays that the radio host is all right, that he won't be hurt or dead or _hate_ Carlos for what he di--what the _Thing_ did, he amends again, but it's so hard to differentiate the two when he can now vividly recall tearing Cecil in half, ripping the tentacles from his form, seeking purchase within his body-- 

He sees the shape slowly rise up, supporting itself on two of the thicker black limbs, and relief instantly washes through Carlos, because at the very least Cecil was alive. Hurt, hurt _badly_ but this was Night Vale, and anything short of death could be remedied somehow through one of the town's sinister miracles. 

As Carlos gets close enough to smell the scent of dried leaves and petrichor, the mass lets out a horrible, horrible scream that sounds like the death cries of beasts driven into a maddened corner coming through some kind of thick, glutinous syrup and suddenly everything is rushing towards Carlos at once. 

The ensuing thuds sound far off and distant, like the practice fire of a military base beyond the Sand Wastes, like the imagined boom of an atomic blast in the middle of the night when everything is too quiet to hear only _silence_. 

Carlos absently notes that he suddenly can't see out of his left eye. Somehow, it doesn't seem relevant; neither does the burning pain in his stomach, or the rising warmth in his throat. 

There are tentacles all around Carlos, extending from the mass on the ground, which is fixing him with roiling eyes that are full of hate and fear. 

Carlos had felt those tendrils before, when they were soft and caring and gently holding him, treating him with the utmost love. But now they are hard and thick and piercing and they hurt, and he can't swallow because there's something thick and wet still building up there in his throat.

The tentacles jerk back, retreated from where they've impaled him back to the amorphous mass that was Cecil, but the blocks in Carlos throat and the pain in his stomach and the patch of blindness over his eye are still there, they're never going to go away, not, he realizes, until Carlos himself has gone.

Something is rolling down the cheek where the blind patch is, and he wishes he could know what it is. He wishes he could know much of anything, but his brain isn't working any longer. 

_Cecil, I'm--_

He collapses to his knees before falling forward. His face scrapes the asphalt.

\---------------

The haze of anger and desperation and fear is lifted from Cecil's eyes like a cloth being torn away, and for a brief moment he wonders if he's been re-educated again, because the Secret Police always do love to hood their charges while the programming process works its way into the subject's head. 

But the sight of Carlos collapsing not feet in front of him, to lie so _still_ right on the cracked divide of the asphalt, is something even too cruel, he thinks through the shock, for the Secret Police. 

It's too frighteningly real. 

Cecil's cry is still warped with the fading grasps of his monster form, and it devolves from a shriek of a thousand jostling voices to a single one; high-pitched and whistling in it's terribly _human_ pain. Only moments before he had been terrified by the monster Carlos had been, overwhelmed with the part of him that was pure abomination, driven by a need to survive even if it meant tearing through the man he loved, the man who had been trying to help him only for him to react too quickly because he was scared of the Thing--

He's missing fingers though he does not care how he lost them, and his remaining tentacles are falling to useless ash all over his clothes and hair and in big concentric circles around him and Carlos--perfect, beautiful, _still_ Carlos, Carlos who needs to start moving right now or else Cecil is going to void himself of each and every last organ from his body. 

He watches but doesn't dare touch. 

He wants Carlos to get up on his own. He wills him to get up on his own. 

_Carlos is self reliant, he's a scientist and that's the first thing that a scientist is_. Cecil can look. He can't help. Carlos has to get up on his own.

He stares at the prone form until his eyesight starts to tremble. 

Carlos still isn't getting up and Cecil sobs dry, his throat ripping into itself. He tries to cover his ears and forget, but he only feels seven fingers against the sides of his head and he cries out because it hurts, everything hurts. 

He can't forget.  

He stretches both his whole fingers and the bloody stumps towards Carlos and grasped him sloppily by the shoulders, hoping that turning him over will be like tearing off a bandage, painful for but a second before the sting fades away and is lost. It isn't. He turns Carlos over and immediately lets go of the scientist, letting his body fall back against the street as he frantically puts his hands over his eyes, fingers digging into the folds of his forehead as he shakes his head until his hair whips violently against the air because he _can't_ look. 

One of the lens of Carlos' glasses is cracked neatly into a hole that continues on and on and when Cecil realizes he can _see_ the brown and red surface of the asphalt he breaks into hysterics. His body curls in over itself, over Carlos, and he hugs himself before remembering that he's the one who did this and that _he_ is vile and loathsome, and he doesn't want to touch himself. Even the sensation of his organs touching each other, of the skin clinging to the warmth of his muscle and blood, is too much. 

So he touches Carlos with careful, shaking and bloody hands; touches his arms, his face, the scratch of his jeans, the wounds in his stomach, the tears in his throat, his hair. 

"Please."

He slips his hands under Carlos' head and tries to lift him up, but the tips of his fingers grace the bloodied hole in the back of his skull and he lets it drop with a wail. 

"No. _No--_ please be alive. Carlos. _Carlos._ I need you to be alive. I need--" he vomits through a hiccup and desperately tries to hold onto Carlos tight despite his missing digits. "I need you I need you I need you _please._  

He can feel his insides deteriorating without Carlos, separating from each other because they're loathe to hold together such a vile form. What's more, there's nothing left to hold him here, nothing at all now that the strong warmth in those arms and hands and fingers and eyes is gone and dry and dead. His body gives out, and his hands can no longer hold, so he lays on top of Carlos, searching for a warmth long fled to florid pastures unknown. 

"Please…" He mumbles, breathy words growing sluggish, "you're so smart, so, _so_ smart, you must understand that I need you? My Carlos."

It should have been easy. Carlos should have come away from the thing, separated from it like water and oil that Cecil could skim off the top and hold close and safe in the cup of his hands. When it came down to it, he wasn't smart enough himself. 

Cecil blinks with one eye, and then the other, and then the other, and then his entire body shudders and blinks. 

He doesn't know when it became night. He doesn't even know if it really is night, if night was ever full of atomic clouds and blue streaks of crosshatched blue and lights that feel like puncture wounds in a film of dark that stretches over some infinite realm of white. 

His eyes no longer see, his body no longer feels anything besides the imagined warmth of the body beneath him, and his voice intones words that seem far off, as if spoken by someone else, someone who wants to keep him tied in this world. 

"I can't."

Cecil's smile carries no emotion, and yet it still is. 

"Can't."


End file.
